Various board games exist in which movable playing pieces representing opposing players are moved in accordance with prescribed directions, distances and sequences. In some games, such as Chinese checkers for example, all game pieces have the same movement characteristics in terms of distance and direction. Other games, such as chess or standard checkers, involve game pieces having specific movement characteristics and capturing capabilities that vary among different game pieces.
In the aforementioned games, however, the dynamic quality of each game piece is limited. As a result, the degree to which a player can strategically surprise his opponent is limited in the sense that in checkers, for example, once a game piece is enhanced it will not be changed again. When a checker game piece is crowned, its movement characteristics will remain the same for the rest of the game. In chess, aside from well executed strategy, the only element of surprise is the recovery of a captured game piece. Recovery of a captured game piece in chess is fairly predictable in terms of guessing which captured game piece an opponent will choose to recover, and when such recovery will occur if at all. In neither chess nor checkers, does a game piece have optional modes of movement beyond a few degrees of variation in direction.